Welcome back to the third in a series of articles in which SMC readers offer their suggestions for summer reading. As you might recall, the prompt was for fiction that carried a kind of meaningful punch for the reader. Thanks everybody, including Vickie, Joann, and Jake who left their suggestions in the “Comments” section of this blog site. I don’t know about you, but I’m planning on a trip to the library this week! Enjoy. See you next week.
I. Jenny Bird, Freelance Writer, Communications Professional, Mother, Wife
My Brilliant Friend. Elena Ferrante. 2011. Europa Editions.
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante is a story about the friendship of two girls growing up in Naples, Italy in the 1950s. Ferrante’s vivid writing transported me there, a violent, old-world culture very different from my own, but with struggles and tensions familiar to any woman, perhaps any human. Moments in the book that unveil generational trauma, damnable gender roles, competition, and fierce love took my breath away. It’s not one of those books that taught me how to live, it’s one that reflects back the moments in life I’d like to forget but can’t ignore. A friend gave me this book, and I’ve got an extra copy just in case — it’s the kind of book you slip to that friend who feels like a sister.
II. Ned Presnal, Owner and Director, Plan Your Own Psychotherapist, Dad, Husband.
Never Let Me Go. 2005. Kazuo Ishiguro. Faber & Faber.
I love Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go for the way he depicts human longing to transcend through love and art our inevitable losses and mortality. Ishiguro is a student of unfulfilled desire, and his Remains of the Day culminates in one of my favorite scenes in literature, a conversation between two people who loved each other deeply throughout their lives but could never quite connect, and the dreamlike Buried Giant explores the way we use forgetfulness to cope with reality even as we struggle to remember the pieces of ourselves we most cherish.
Exhalation 2019. Ted Chiang. Alfred Knopf.
But I would be remiss not to mention Ted Chiang’s Exhalation, a book of short stories in which, the titular story, Exhalation offers a breathtaking meditation on self-discovery. I love authors who write in a simple, reflective style and capture something that feels true to me. Both of these authors do that.
III. Sheila Burton, Executive Director, Every Child Education Equity Project, Founder and Former Director, Joining Hands Project, Founder and former Director of Ubuntu Project, East St. Louis, Mother, Wife
The Red Tent. 1997. Anita Diamant. New York: Picador
A work of fiction that focuses on the turmoil of biblical women of old. I loved it because it spoke to strength of the sisterhood of women.
Pope Joan. 1996. Diana Woolfolk-Cross. Random House
About a woman who disguises herself as a man so she could live as she wanted to live, learn, and be free as she could not be as a woman—all of which resulted in her eventually becoming pope. I loved the strength of Joan to use her gifts to follow her call and to fearlessly be herself.
The Secret Life of Bees. 2008. Sue Monk Kidd. Random House.
Addresses racism, strength of women, divine female power.
Looking back on these selections, I realize that these novels express a theme that has motivated me throughout my entire adult career as an advocate for disadvantaged women of color. More broadly, they express a common theme of the ways that women have exercised a kind of resilience and resourcefulness to overcome systems that sought to hold them down or mute their brilliance. I hold the conviction that the women protagonists in these novels are not so much extraordinary, as expressive of an ordinariness that is knit into the feminine character that is the birthright of all women…with no exceptions! A great writer has a way of using fiction to show me something that is part of my everyday life!
IV. Ann Velasco, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Mother, Wife.
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake. 2021. Tiya Miles. Random House.
All that she carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack and Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles. From Amazon: “National Book award winner. NY Times bestseller. A renowned historian traces the life of a single object handed down through three generations of Black women to craft a “deeply layered and insightful” (Wash Post) testament to people who are left out of the archives.
All That She Carried feels like one of the most important books I’ve ever read. It is a true story of a 9 year old child named Ashley separated from her mother (Rose) during the 1850’s when Ashley is sold at a slave auction. Tiya Miles’ writing of this story invited me to imagine what it must have been like to be unfree, owned by another, and have your beloved child taken from you. Rose filled a flour sack with items she hoped would help her daughter survive. The flour sack was lost until 2007 when a woman purchased a stack of fabric remnants in Nashville Tennessee. It’s a testament of the power of oral history passed on through the generations from one woman to the next, preserving their incredible bond of love and strength. Ruth, granddaughter of Ashley, made a momentous decision in 1921 when she was just 19 years old to embroider the oral story that had been passed through the family of women onto the flour sack thereby making it written history.
V. Mattie Gottbrath, Administrator, International Philanthropic Organization Administrator
The Harry Potter Series. JK Rowling. Scholastic Press.
We all know the story: a boy who was destined to duel a man overcome by evil in order to save the Wizarding and Muggle world. I recently re-watched the movies. Two messages sit with me closely in our present moment. (1.) Supremacy in all forms is dangerous and inherently flawed, whether its Voldemort with his pure-blood supremacist ideals, or politicians who are supported by, or fail to disavow white supremacist ideals in all their forms. (2.) There is power in youth. Harry, Hermione, and Ron started their journeys as mere eleven year-olds. Over the next several years, they come to hold more and more responsibility for the future of their world. Yet, with that responsibility grows their conviction of what is right and what is worth fighting for. They never once let their age affect their passion and bravery.
My first suggestion is “All the Broken Places” by John Boyne. It is a later “follow up” of his “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” which deal with the young children of the captain of a Nazi concentration camp as they live on the other side of the fence. This newer novel follows the young daughter and mother as they flee at war’s end to find safety and an escape for the Germany they lived in.
The narrator is the girl at the age of 90 looking back on a life spent burying guilt and grief. Not an easy read, but a wonderful one.
Another recommendation I have is “Animal Dreams” by Barbara Kingsolver. It follows 2 sisters raised in a small ethnic town in Arizona’s desert as they come to terms with a confusing upbringing by a white physician and an American Indian mother. Each chooses a different response to build a future. Hauls you in more and more as you read.